Of these I consider Washington Gladden entitled to the highest rank as an exponent of mediocrity. Indeed, after a careful survey of the magazine barons’ wide domain, I must award the palm of merit to this popular manufacturer of literary wares for even mediocrity, unspoiled by the slightest sense of humor. It is that very lack of humor which has brought success to many a man whose mission in life has been to write for the great, simple-minded public. The poets and humorists of the Jack Moran school, who were compelled to descend to the commonplace and the stupid because of their temporal necessities, never really became thorough masters of the divine art of writing mediocrity, because their sense of the ludicrous brought them to a halt before those Alpine heights of tedious imbecility which people like E. P. Roe and Washington Gladden scaled with unblanched cheeks. But to return to Washington Gladden. If any of the large and thoughtful circle whom I have the honor to address have never read a story from this gentleman’s pen, entitled _The Christian League of Connecticut_, I implore them to seek out the numbers of the _Century_ in which it appeared about a decade ago, and sit down to the enjoyment of one of the finest specimens of unconscious humor that our generation has known. This story deals with a league composed of all the Protestant churches in a small Connecticut town, for the promotion of large-hearted geniality and mutual aid in the work of evangelization. It contains a description of a scene in the Methodist Church at the moment when it seems that the congregation will be unable to raise the debt which has long weighed them down. They are about to abandon the attempt, when the other churches in the town learn of their distress and proceed to help them out. The First Congregational Church pledges $1675, the Universalist Church sends $500, and finally the Second Congregational Church raises the ante to $1810, while the people burst forth into shouts of “Hallelujah!” and fervent songs of praise. If any one were to write a wild burlesque on the ecclesiastical methods in vogue in Connecticut he would fall far short of Mr. Gladden’s account of this extraordinary meeting. The New England country parson who gets his salary regularly is a fortunate man, and as to subscriptions for the church, they are usually collected with the aid of a stomach-pump. I have never yet heard of a man giving anything toward any church save that in which he had a pew, but I do remember the scene which ensued one morning in a little country meeting-house, when the richest man in the congregation relaxed his grip on three hundred dollars--and there was a string tied to every bill, too. Another chapter of _The Christian League_ tells us how Judge Beeswax returned to his native village from the city in which he had grown wealthy, and generously gave a thousand dollars to save the old church, in which he had worshiped as a boy, from being sold for old timber.